Imatges de pàgina
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The liberties of man, and confequently the progress of science, of civilization, and the arts, have already enough to contend with in every state, viewed feparately. Whenever the powers invested in goverment for ufeful purpofes, become abused to ambitious ones, in vain do individuals feek to refift a great collective force instituted by themfelves. Despair fometimes produces a counter-union of the fubjects, but as it commonly ends in an alteration of rulers, rather than of principles, the evil complained of foon recurs. Hence there are few good governments in the world; fo few, that our own nation thinks itself in poffeffion of the only one; and even this has required more than one fuccefsful revolution to produce, or to preferve its perfection Such then, is the ftate of every fingle country, even when the domeftic enemy to its happiness has none except the forces of his own nation, at his difpofal.—But a new scene at the prefent moment opens itfelf. Several princes have agreed mutually to lend to one another the powers respectively intrusted to them for national objects, in order that each may thence be enabled to enforce his respective pleasure upon his refpective people. In other words, they engage to bring the military forces and the revenues of all nations, to act, when requifite, upon the people of any fingle nation; although that people has already enough to struggle with at home, whenever its own public force is applied to fuppert tyranny. As a counter-concert among the people of different nations is impoffible, it is henceforth then intended, that princes fhall legiflate at their own difcretion; and hat no nation fhall ever be able to right its own wrongs; the example of Poland even proving, that when a prince is difpofed to concur with his own people in improving the conftitutution of the nation, permiffion is to be denied even for a measure of mutual happiness.--Each nation is, therefore, to be confidered as defigned to be governed by an enemy within, and an enemy without; and every order in fociety, whet er civil or religious, is to vanish before an union of military despotifm.'

He proceeds to fhew, that in joining ourselves to their alliance we not only give a fanction to their rapacity, but are acting in direct oppofition to all the maxims of found policy, by directing our arms against the only power capable of balancing this mighty triumvirate - he obferves, that if France is fuffered to be under a re, ublican go.ernment, fhe is neceffarily detached from Auftria, and as neceffarily thrown into connections with it, if the ancient government is reftored by the combined powers. The author relates, in terms of ftrong and animated reprobation, the difmemberment of Poland, and gives a curious account, taken from the works of one of the royal plunderers, the late king of Pruffia, of the hiftory of the firft partition.It ought to be read by every one, though it tends to awakenpainful feelings of indignation agaiuft the authors of a tranfac

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tion fo villainous, that under any tolerably well regulated government, it would have brought individuals who had fo acted to the gallows. The fecond divifion was if poflible still more glaringly flagitious, as the invading powers had guaranteed the remainder of their prey. Pruffia, according to the idea of the author, is preparing her own deftruction by this co-operation with Auftria and Ruffia, who when they have fwallowed up the rest of Europe will eafily reduce their unequal partner to the ftate of an obfequious dependant. The author endeavours to roufe the general attention to the progrefs of this triumvirate, by fhowing the confequences of unreftained defpotism, not only towards the people, but towards the clergy, the aristocracy, and even all the minor princes of Europe. The increafing power of Ruffia is defcribed as particularly formidable.

Ruffia is an empire as fingular in its prefent ftate, as it was in its commencement. She exhibits the picture of North America in Europe, or of an old country and a new country combined into one; having a population which (owing to eafy means of subsistence, which render marriages early and frequent), augments one-fifth in every twenty years, in defiance of public and private defpotism. She difplays a partial luxury in the midft of wildernesses; she has a civilized cabinet at the head of a femi-barbarous nation; her people are obftinate, yet docile; and her peafants, though awed by their mafters, yet are brave when foldiers.---With thirty millions, of people, which are thus rapidly and progreffively increasing, Ruffia is placed invulnerable, in the north-caftern corner of Europe. Her territories are bounded by defarts, by woods, and by inhofpitable climates; the derives ftrength from the very barrennefs and diffufion of her empire; and fhe is fituated out of the reach of all maritime approaches, though herfelf poffeffing a confiderable navy for offenfive purposes. She has alfo myriads of difciplined forces, and a peculiar ftrength in light troops for keeping in ae large trafts of country; and almost all her forces combat with the advantage of different religious prejudices, which leffen the terrors of death; and they are alfo peculiarly hardy and capable of fatigue. If her empire is vaft in its extent, her troops, her failors, and her stores, move through it with incredible celerity, owing to water communications, and to the abundance of horfes belonging to her peafantry, which admit of conveyances by poft, (either in waggons, or eife in fledges upon the fnow,) both for her forces and for warlike ftores.—At the end of her laft war but one, fhe remitted taxes; and at the end of the war just concluded, fhe has not augmented them.-She lofes subjects in war, but replaces them by those whom the vanquifies, or by the excess of the number born from her own people over thofe which die; fhe incrcafes, therefore, both in war and in peace; and it is this internal or this extraneous increase of men, accompanied at the fame time with

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with an augmentation of cultivation, of arts and of wealth, which (unnoticed by the rest of Europe,) enables her, upon every struggle, to appear with renewed and accumulated ftrength.-Laftly, the fkirts the whole northern frontier of Afia; fhe poffeffes the means of attacking its rich western flank completely from north to fouth; and (fince diftance is nothing to Ruffians,) the is not without accefs to its eastern flank, and to the rich mines of Western America; but above all, (in confequence of having the means of invading our EastIndian poffeffions from the north, facilitated by the help of water carriage on great lakes and defcending rivers; as well as by having a probable opportunity through the aid of Auftria, of commanding one or both of the two navigations of the Red Sea and the Perfian Gulph,) the feems to draw close to the moment of obtaining poffeffion of that communication between western and eastern nations, which in all ages of the world has uniformly and fignally aggrandized those who have held it.-In one word, fhe is become the modern. northen hive, pouring forth, not disorderly, but marshalled and obedient fwarms, increafing yearly in their numbers by land and by fea, all recognizing a common chief, whofe watchful eyes turn alike to the east and to the weft, to fearch for opportunities of plunder, either in company or alone; rendering barbarians her immediate inftruments, and the rich her certain victims; and being likely foon. to poffefs that most dangerous of all combinations; namely, numbers, arms, and wealth.'

When Auftria and Ruffia have fucceeded in gathering into their vortex one after another of the fecondary states of Europe, the Obferver predicts that their ambition will be excited to revive in their perfons the eastern and western empires, a fhadow of which still remains in their refpective titles. He, therefore, calls upon us to direct our fears and our precautions towards that quarter where there is the most danger.

• During the prefent century, we have lost no territory to France, even though the has been fupported by Spain, Holland, and America;. but have regularly gained ground upon her. On the other hand, the triumvirs have of late years been large and conftant accumulators of power; and the obferving eye can fee no traces of any returning footfteps from their fatal den; for if they lofe any thing, it is only to one another; and their internal balance, whenever thus difturbed, is foon re-adjusted, by means of new plunder ravished from their defenceless neighbours.-What weakness then is it in us, refentfully to pursue the ignis fatuus of French politics into fwamps and. quagmires, without obferving the flaming mafs of lava which is not only formed, but pouring forth behind us? Shall we dread the froth and foam, the noise and fury of the wave, which beats but without. everpaffing the rock on which we ftand; and neglect the tide of pow er, which is filently rifing to overwhelm us Shall we be afraid of

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the ftrength depending upon fever and convulfion, and view with unconcern, that which depends upon fixed ftamina and conftitutional habit? Shall we only firuggle against the smaller evils which France has it not in her power to accomplish, and has even ceased to threaten ; rather than against the greater ones, which the triumvirs can certainly produce, whenever they have but the inclination, and their fecrecy refpecting which renders but the more certain? Shall we be terrified at the difcords of France, and not be alarmed at the union of freebooters; when the tritest of proverbs tells us, that the honest have always fomething to fear, whenever those who are lefs honeft agree too well?'

The author difcuffes at length, the great queftion of the prefent war upon a variety of grounds, and confiders it, whether victorious or unfortunate, as pregnant with evils both to our internal liberty and our external fituation amongst the powers of Europe. He takes pains to establish the unwillingness of the French to break with England, and confiders the dimiffion of M. Chauvelin as a virtual declaration of war-to the objec tions made against the fraternizing spirit of the French repubdic, he anfwers, by referring to the intriguing fpirit of their old monarchy, and the fraternizing practices of the triumvirateto the objection that we have no one with whom to treat, he anfwers, treat with the powers that be-thofe are the people to make peace with, with whom you are making war. Peace does not imply alliance. It would perhaps be better, he adds, if Great Britain were at peace with all and in alliance with none. Among the various reasons given by this masterly writer (reafons which are not, we prefume, grown lefs forcible fince the publication of the work) for opening an immediate negociation, we fhall quote the following, becaufe it may be level to the comprehenfions of those who confefs themselves to be no politicians, but who are the zealous partifans of the war, purely as good Chriftians.

There is another reason, which, in my opinion equally relates to the high and the low, to the government and to the people, and which ffrongly pleads for peace: I mean, the rapid rate at which we are fpoiling gur tempers.-We have seen many perfons among us, of all ranks, profoundly ignorant of the ftate of things in France, who yet have learned to utter imprecations the most horrid against a whole nation. One is apt to fufpe&t at times, that we are among the pupils of Caligula and Nero, when we obferve men and even women, who feem defirous that the French nation fhould have but one neck, that themselves might serve as the executioners, and find fome who would fiddle while Paris was burning. Such fentiments would certainly difgrace the reprobated country of France itself, whofe mifdeeds are inade the pretended parent of them. I muft

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here add, that to deny corn to the armies and garrifons of France might seem justifiable, though at the expence of dangerous meafures towards neutral powers; but to deny corn to the people of France, and (like lord Auckland) knowingly to favour either the creation or the operation of "famine," throughout a whole nation; fcems a ftrange relapse into fyftems, from which the philanthropy of modern writers of all nations, and the foftening principles of the age, had once feemed to have delivered us; efpecially, as the operation of famine upon the temper of a nation, is feldom regular and systematic, but commonly tumultuous and uncertain; being much more likely to produce, in the prefent inftance, the mailacre of men of fubftance in each little community of France, than the conversion or exclufion of the prefent general governors of it. But another evil to refult from the spirit which has lately gone forth among us, is the inveteracy endeavoured to be established against the French nation, which tending to generate fimilar paflions on their fide, a fecond road may thence be opened for a return to all our mutual ancient animofity and infanity; and thus future minifters and ages may long have to rue the effects of a conduct, which will have again alienated from each other two great nations; who, as living fo near each other, are highly interefted in mutual peace, the establishment of which between them would probably lead to the peace of Europe and mankind.'

Such are the fentiments and fuch the reasoning of our refpectable author, from whom what we have quoted will ferve to fhew how liberal are the one and how forcible the other, Yet we cannot help thinking that, with regard to the dangers. to be apprehended from Ruflia and Auftria, he indulges too much to fpeculation, and countenances, at leaft by easy inference, a fyftem of interference as bad as what he reprobates with regard to France. For when he fpeaks of preventing any new acceffion to the strength of the triumvirs,' of further endeavouring to decompofe this mighty mafs of mischief,' and propofes for that purpofe that a fpeedy,' and, he adds indeed, if pollible, a fpontaneous divifion of the Ruflian territories fhould take place between the iffuc of the prefent emprefs,' when he talks of renovating the power of the Turks by engaging them to receive twelve or fifteen thousand foreigners into their pay, and infifts that the triumvirs fhould not be permited, even by means of exchanges, to arrange their dominions in any form more commodious to themselves than the prefent;' what is it, but to plunge us into all the labyrinth of continental and extraneous politics, from which, under the romantic notion of keeping up the ballance of Europe, this country has fuffered so much.-If, fays the author, we did right lately in countenancing the German league formed against

Auftria,

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